If Only
by metacognitive
Summary: The summer Ponyboy turns eighteen, two things happen. Vague companion to 'Play It Cool.'


what took you so long to finish your swan song?  
not negative, just different  
you wanna go out, i wanna finish living  
you wanna get up, when i could just lay all day, with you  
i could just stay all day, with you  
(Willow, "9")

* * *

The summer Ponyboy turns eighteen, two things happen.

That's not entirely true—a thousand things happen, a million. He's just finished his first year at university, too young to even buy his own drink. He manages to pass all his classes, take a girl out on a few dates that lead nowhere, and come in first at enough meets that his name is being passed around outside of Oklahoma, too. Soda's notice came that year, 'cept they found a heart condition and said he couldn't go; figures Sodapop Curtis would find out his heart don't work right and start back-flipping off strangers' cars outta sheer joy. Besides that, Two-Bit's finally working, Darry's taking classes at a local community college—so is Steve—and Vicky Bernal's stopped raising hell.

But the big things, or even just the important things, the ones that Ponyboy remembers the most—those happen within a month of him getting back. The second half of the summer is mostly a blur.

Before that, though, he packs all his things up and heads back home. Darry picks him from the dorms in the early afternoon, seems surprised that Ponyboy's gotten all his stuff tucked into boxes and ready to go. He barely keeps from rolling his eyes.

"I've been ready to come home for weeks, Dar," he says, and Darry reaches over to muss his hair like always. He doesn't slick it back the same way he did in high school, but he still styles it, and he fusses with it afterwards while Darry starts carrying his stuff down to the truck.

It's surprisingly easy to fall back into the sense of camaraderie the two of them worked so long to build. Maybe it's because Ponyboy's finally been on his own—knows, now, how hard it is to take care of himself, let alone anyone else. Now more than ever he feels truly appreciative of everything Darry's done for him. Not because he never appreciated it before, but because the perspective is different. Newer, more complete. Pony digs it.

It's not like he went far, after all. Far enough, though, to do the growing up he still needed to do. Still needs to do, he thinks, as they pull up to the front porch and start pulling boxes back out. Hell, he's not even eighteen yet; Ponyboy is willing to admit he's still got a lot to learn, even if it feels mostly like it won't be much help in the day-to-day moments he stays caught up in.

As if on cue, Sodapop comes tumbling down the porch, launching himself at his younger brother despite the boxes in his arms. "Ponyboy!" he says, grinning that crazy smile, "You're back!"

"Told you we'd be back around this time," Darry says, stepping around the two of them and quirking an eyebrow as Ponyboy struggles to not drop either of the boxes—both full of books—that he's holding. It wasn't too much stuff that he had to bring back, more clothes than anything, and it shouldn't take more than two trips between the them all, assuming Sodapop lets go of him anytime soon.

"Hey, Soda," Ponyboy says, and finally lets the two boxes he's carrying drop to the ground. He wraps his arms around the other, and for a long moment they stand there embracing, like it's been two years instead of two months since Ponyboy last came home.

"How was the drive, kiddo?" Soda says when he finally releases him.

"Good," he says, "being back is better."

"I bet," Soda says, clapping hand against his back and then scooping up the boxes he'd dropped. "Sheesh, how many books did you take with you? I don't remember you owning this many," and he laughs all the way inside.

* * *

The first thing that happens may or may not be Vicky Bernal's fault. It's maybe a week or two after Ponyboy gets back and he was out the night before, with Two-Bit to shoot the shit. Slowly he's settling back into the routine of home, of Tulsa, and of mostly keeping himself out of trouble. Granted, that may be because Curly's not around anymore, and Steve and Soda don't usually get up to anything too crazy even on their off-days.

He wakes up late that morning, nearing noon by the time he gets out of the shower. He forgets about the perpetually unlocked front door, is lucky he has his pants on when he finally makes it out of the bathroom and into the hallway.

"Morning, Curtis," someone says, and Ponyboy looks up from where he's trying to pull a shirt over his head to find Vic giving him an appreciative glance. He flushes despite himself, knows she's always been a flirt with everyone, so unlike her sister in a thousand and one ways. It's the first he's seen of her in months, and her hair is wild as ever.

"Hey, Vicky," he says, and grins when she makes a face at him.

"Nobody calls me that anymore," she tells him, pouting, and pushes her hair back, "'cept for maybe Lisa, and Steve, _because_ of Lisa. Don't bring it back."

"I know," he says, and finally gets his shirt on. "What're you up to?"

She makes another face at him. "You sound like Darry," she says. "Asks me something like that every time we run into each other at the grocery store, like I must be up to trouble."

Ponyboy snorts, says, "Ain't you usually?"

"Nah," she says, cocking a hip and leaning against the wall dividing the kitchen from the hallway. "Not much trouble to find with all the boys fighting the Viet Cong." She says it like a curse, expression souring for just a moment before smoothing out completely. If Ponyboy didn't know better, he'd say she didn't give a damn about the war at all. She says, "I was about to head to the grocery store."

She's wearing a sleeveless orange top and jean cutoffs, a blue flannel unbuttoned over it; Pony's never known a girl to take as much joy in ugly outfits as Vic Bernal, but she manages to pull it off better than anyone else he knows. Before Curly got drafted, even before he and Vic started running around raising hell together, she was the only other girl folks would mention on the same breath as Angela Shepard. _Something about Spanish girls_, the boys would say, boys and men Pony's age or older, watching the two girls separately and calling them jailbait when the Shepard boys weren't around.

'Course, things changed a bit after Angela got married; not by much, but enough. Angela Shepard was no longer unstoppable, it seemed like. Then Curly's notice came in and it was all over. Tim went from two kids running circles around him to none, threatening to send Curly down to Guadalajara to escape the war, where Maria Shepard-née-Nazar had been born and where they still had certain important connections. Curly, to the surprise of everyone, had said no, reported to Uncle Sam and been shipped off in good time.

Ponyboy was there the night Curly and Vic got into a shouting match, both several drinks in and looking as likely to fight as fuck each other. At the end of the day it didn't matter; he drove Vic to the Shepards to say goodbye, and the second Curly was out of sight in Tim's black Camaro she and Angela had gotten into a catfight that ended only after Maria came out on the porch waving a gun. The two of them are more civil now than in the entirety of time that the Bernals have been in town.

Lisa left town soon as she graduated, left after the summer of '68 and stayed away until it was May again. Vic says she wanted to her with, but. Either way, when she came back she tossed Vicky her keys and then dragged Steve off to the dealership to buy herself a Camaro almost as nice as the one Tim bought right before. That was last year, and Vicky's been beside herself with taking care of the Pontiac. She keeps it waxed like new and only ever goes to the DX to fill-up, where she harasses Steve and flirts with Sodapop by turns.

Despite this, she hates having to drive if she doesn't have to, which means that the real reason she's here is to get Ponyboy to drive her to the grocery store. He points this out, says, "You're lucky I gotta pick up groceries, too," and tries to ignore how bright her answering smile is.

Before he left for school, she had the tendency to be caught at the scene of the crime—any crime, usually petty—with a wide-eyed expression of innocence that folks believed every time. She'd be the lookout while Curly busted windows, would bat her eyelashes at bouncers while Shepard's crew did their business, then run home afterwards and cook her daddy dinner like it weren't nothing. Ponyboy knows most of its stopped since August, on account of he and Curly both left town, and she tells him as they get into the car that she's mostly been hanging out with Two-Bit's sister again, like she used to before the two of them started high school.

It's far from the first time he's driven the Pontiac, but it _has_ been awhile. Vic spent all of winter break up in Chicago with Lisa, hitting up clubs she shouldn't have been able to get into and falling in love with some boy who lived on the same block as her sister.

("Too bad he's queer," she had lamented when she got back, bouncing into his arms the second she was inside the Curtis house and ignoring Two-Bit's hooting at them. "Did I tell you Lisa's living in a gay neighborhood? She says they're planning a big parade soon.")

"Are you back for the whole summer?" Vic asks as they turn onto the main road. She fiddles with the radio, switching it to some old Supremes hit that Ponyboy vaguely remembers, but keeps the volume low. He can feel her eyes on him.

"Yeah," he says. "Prob'ly gonna find some work, maybe at the movies again."

"Oh, that's a good gig," she says, "you used to get me and Izzy in for free."

"That's only 'cause I never trusted you not to tell me off if I didn't."

"That, or 'cause Izzy's had the hots for you for ages."

"No, she hasn't," Ponyboy says, grimacing, because the last thing he needs is Isabel Mathews mooning over him again like they're kids again.

"Listen to me," she says, faux-serious, "you're wrong. What happened with that redhead you were seeing, anyway?"

Ponyboy winces. "Didn't go nowhere."

"She wouldn't put out, huh," she says, so dryly that he could mistake her voice for Lisa's.

He looks over at her, knows he looks like a gaping fish. "Sheesh, you wash your mouth out lately, Bernal?"

"I've said and done stupider things than that," she says, and he sees what must be the flash of her smile from the corner of his eye. "Remember that time we were out smoking—you, me, and Curly, and I—"

"Yes," Ponyboy interrupts, not wanting to think about her mouth a hair's breadth away from his, inhaling the thick smoke from a joint and the way she pressed her lips to Curly's immediately afterwards, "I do."

She laughs. "Was that the night we got into it on his porch? Right before he shipped out."

"He write to you recently?"

"Of course," she says, sounding offended. "He still can't spell worth a damn, go figure. Keeps asking me for a pin-up."

Ponyboy lets out a sharp bark of laughter. "All he tells me is that it's too blasted hot for there to be people living out there."

"Asshole," she says, fond, and Ponyboy's almost positive it's directed at Curly. He does have some doubts. "Less than a year," she says, like Ponyboy doesn't already know, "just a few more months. He's gonna be a pain in the ass again, once he gets back."

"You expect any different?" he asks. "He's Angela Shepard's brother."

"Hey," she says when he laughs at his own comment, "I don't remember you laughing when me and her got into it the day he left."

"One of you she-devils _bit_ me," Ponyboy says.

"In any other situation—"

"_Vicky_."

"_Ponyboy_," she says, making her voice go all nasally, and then she laughs before getting serious. "Hey, you hear about Mark Jennings?"

"Shoot," Ponyboy says, "what he do now?"

"They're sending him to the State," she tells him. "Guess his behavior ain't been the best at the reformatory."

"Oh shit," Ponyboy says, glancing at her. "I figured he'd be out by now. None of us have ever gotten slammed with longer than a few months." 'Cept for maybe Dallas, he thinks, but the Bernals never had the chance to know him, before.

"That's 'cause y'all are a bunch of white boys," Vicky says, "plus, y'all never pushed. They're real serious about that shit now."

"Still," Ponyboy says, though he's not sure what he's trying to insist on.

"It's crazy," she says, and it's almost what he was going for. "I still remember him dealing those couple weeks before Douglas turned him in. Or months, I can't really remember."

"Cathy told me he wasn't doing it that long," Ponyboy says, "but hell, Mark's probably the only one who really knows."

Vic hums in agreement, quiet for a long moment before she says, "He used to gimme hits for free, actually," and Ponyboy nearly takes a red light, braking hard and half-reaching out to Vicky, who isn't wearing her seatbelt.

"Jesus, Joseph and Mary," he says, "would you put on your seatbelt?"

She pushes his arm away. "I'm fine."

"Yeah, okay," he says, and then, "what do you mean he used to give you pills for free?"

"They're not really pills," Vic says, like that's what matters. "'s like they dissolve on your tongue, it's a little weird. But yeah, I mean, I'd put out, obviously—"

"What," Ponyboy says. He looks at her for a long moment, her wide dark eyes blinking at him in something like confusion.

"It's a green light."

"You were sleeping with him?" Ponyboy says, and then looks away to start driving again. His voice is somewhat shriller than he'd like. "For _acid_?"

"I tried paying him once," Vic says, and picks at her nails. "Told me to shut up and spread 'em, so it worked out fine."

"Jesus," Ponyboy says again. And then, like he's been shocked, "Wait. Jennings and I are the same age, and he got put away almost two years—Bernal, how old were you when you started seeing him?"

"I was never _seeing_ him, Christ, you boys are awful particular about dating girls. Yuck."

"Vic."

"Fourteen?" she says, "I'm pretty sure it was after my birthday, at least. Had to have been, Lisa was gone by then."

"What the fuck."

"Plenty of girls start younger, Curtis."

"Wait," Ponyboy says, sparing her a brief glance as they drive. "You're telling me first guy you gave it to was _Jennings_? _Mark Jennings_?"

She waves a hand at him, like she can't believe he's on the verge of a conniption. "Don't get your panties twisted," she drawls, "I was only doing it for the LSD. He used to give me a hit and then fuck me in that ol' clunker he was driving." She laughs.

Ponyboy feels an overwhelming sense of hysteria, which is pretty standard when he's hanging out with Vic. Part of him wants to hunt down Jennings and beat him senseless for running around with a fourteen-year old, and for doing it while she was high, worst of all, but then he remembers the fallout with Cathy's brother and maybe can see that Jennings just didn't care. He wonders if Lisa knows, and intrinsically knows she doesn't, because if she did, Jennings would have been dead before Bryon had the chance to call the fuzz.

"You still doing that shit?"

"Oh, you're testy," Vic says, and then, as they're driving through another intersection, "no, I stopped after the shit hit the fan. Figured it was too much trouble."

"Yeah, that's one way to put it," Ponyboy says, and that's when a blur of rusted red slams into the passenger side of Vicky's Pontiac.

Things happen quickly after that. He hears more than sees Vic's head slam into the window, feels the ache in his chest and ribs as his whole body jerks against his seatbelt. He reaches out instinctually for her, trying to brace his arm across her chest—she never put on her seatbelt, he remembers, and he swears loudly when the car that was behind them plows into them, too.

"Shit," Vic gasps when things slow down again. She has one hand clutching at his arm, nails digging into his skin, and he's grateful it kept her from slamming into the dashboard. Her other hand moves up to her head, and when he turns—slowly, painfully—he sees blood smeared on the splintered glass.

"You're bleeding," he says, and she swears again.

"I'm fine," she says, and when she turns to look at him her eyes look wild, and dark, and worried. She looks like Lisa and like not-Lisa, the sun making her hair shine almost gold, even inside the car. "Are you alright? Are you hurt?"

"You're not going to be able to open your door," Ponyboy says, watching through the cracked window as the driver of the red four-door stumble out of his vehicle. The man falls, lands on his elbows, and stays down.

"Ponyboy," Vic says, worried.

"I'm okay," he says, "you're the one who's bleeding." She looks at her hand and the two of them blink at the blood on her fingers. "Come on," he says, and helps her crawl out through the driver's side after him.

Once outside of the car everything seems louder. There's a woman in white pants and a white blouse, hair cut into a stylish bob. She looks like a mom. She comes close to them, says, "Are you two alright?" and reaches out like Ponyboy needs to be led away.

"We're fine," Vic answers, leaning against him. She has the same bloody hand up against her temple, the other touching the small of her back. Her mouth twitches, like she's uncomfortable—Ponyboy's not sure she's in pain or just bothered. Maybe both.

"Come this way, sweetheart," the woman says to them, and they move away from the car. "You don't know if there's a gasoline leak somewhere."

"Shit," Vic says, under her breath, trying to turn to look back at the Pontiac and hissing when it hurts. "Oh, my car. Shit. My car."

"Let's focus on you, sweetie," the woman says, though she keeps herself from coming any closer to them. "My son's just called the police for you all, they should be here soon."

"It was a green light, right?" Vic asks, though she directs her question to Ponyboy. "That wasn't our fault?"

"I was the one driving," Ponyboy says. He keeps his arm around her shoulders. "But yeah. It was green."

"Bastard," she mutters, and they turn—slowly, their whole bodies moving like a stop-motion figure might—to watch some other good Samaritans assist the two drivers that hit them.

The woman tries offering a handkerchief to Vic, a pale blue, soft looking thing that she waves off.

"I don't wanna ruin it, ma'am," she says, like she's got half the manners a girl like her is expected to have. Maybe if she were a Soc, Ponyboy figures. The woman doesn't push it, and they watch for another long while, the drivers slowly walking off towards the opposite end of the street. The woman who helped them checks in again before she leaves, and Ponyboy thanks her.

"Lemme call the house," Ponyboy says, when it seems like everyone is mostly safe. The police have arrived, waving drivers passed and one of them makes his way to the two of them. "I think Two-Bit's off today."

"They're gonna wanna talk to you," Vic says, one hand still pressed to her forehead. He reaches out to her, gripping her by the chin as gentle as he can to take a look. She shifts, so that she's holding her hair back instead of pressing her palm to her temple, and he sees the bleeding is mostly stopped. It's not the ugliest scrape he's seen, but it's not the best, either. There's some blood on her clothes.

"Might scar," he says to her, and she frowns.

"That supposed to be comforting?"

"Sorry," he says, and wraps her up in a hug, feeling like if he doesn't he won't know she's all in one piece. She curls her arms around his waist after a moment of uncertainty, then tucks her head under his chin. He's never noticed how well they fit before; remembers he hasn't ever really had reason to.

"Sir?" says the police officer when he finally gets to them. He stands a few feet away, hands at his belt. "Miss? Can we ask you a few questions?"

Vic tries to pull away, flinches. Ponyboy rubs a hand up her spin, lets it rest between her shoulder blades.

"Sure," he says, "but could we make a quick phone call first?"

Calling Two-Bit takes only a few minutes, and once he's been assured that both Ponyboy and Vic are safe he starts cracking jokes, prompting Ponyboy to hang up on him. By the time he gets back to Vic she's done giving her statement, and his takes only a bit longer. The paramedics want to take them both in, just in case, but they refuse, say they'll make sure they get checked out if they need it. Afterwards they stay standing on the curb together, Ponyboy's arm somehow making its way over Vic's shoulders again so she can tuck herself against his chest like before. He presses his free hand up against her nape, asks her if her head hurts. She shrugs, and he feels the motion.

"I doubt you got aspirin on you," she says, pulls back to look at him head-on. She looks suddenly exhausted. "Your ribs okay?"

"Been worse," he says, and checks the scrape again. He rubs at some of the dried blood on her face, and she closes her eyes slowly, like a cat getting its head scratched. He inhales. Cups her face. She's blinking her eyes back open when Two-Bit pulls up, jumping out of the car like he needs to get a good look at them before they climb in.

"I swear," Two-Bit says, seeing them huddled together despite the heat, "the two of you get into more shit than should be possible."

"When's the last we got in trouble?" Vic says, pulling away from Ponyboy, molasses slow and easy.

"Prob'ly when they shipped Shepard's brother off," Two-Bit says, "and that's only because you spent winter up in Chicago, raising hell for your sister."

"_With_ my sister," Vic says, "y'all seem to think Lisa's an angel."

"Trust me, doll," Two-Bit says, opening one of the car's doors for her and motioning to Ponyboy to get in the front seat, "I know that ain't true."

"Thanks for picking us up, Two-Bit," Ponyboy says, and then to Vic, "hey, put your seatbelt on this time."

"You weren't wearing a seatbelt?"

"No, _Keith_, I wasn't," she says. "Wouldn't have helped. I hit the window."

"Shit," he says, and glances at Ponyboy. "They check you out? Do you need a doctor?"

"I'm fine," she says. "My head hurts, but I'm not dizzy. Paramedics said to keep an eye on it."

"You sure?" he says. "This one was concussed a few years back, scared the hell out of us."

"Hey," Ponyboy says, but doesn't bother defending himself.

"Yeah," Vic says. Then, "Fuck, I still need groceries."

Two-Bit snorts. Ponyboy says, "We'll send Soda once he's off work."

"My car," Vic says, like earlier. "_Fuck_, my car."

"Not worried about yourself at all, huh?" Two-Bit says. "You and the kid gotta lot in common, you know."

"Lisa's gonna kill me," Vic says.

"I'm pretty sure she'll be more worried about you," Two-Bit says, and then makes Ponyboy recount the whole story, from the top this time.

* * *

"So," Vic says into the receiver, after they've gotten home and pulled frozen bags of vegetables from the freezer to press against their bruises, "I've gotta tell you something."

Ponyboy can't make out what Lisa's saying over the phone. Her voice is fuzzy over the receiver, and Ponyboy lets his gaze skitter over the familiar landscape of his living room while Vic talks on the phone. Two-Bit took mercy on them and went on what is hopefully going to be a quick grocery trip, this time at a closer market than the larger one that Ponyboy was driving them to.

"What?" Vic says, face screwed up underneath the bag of peas she has draped over her head. "No, I'm not pregnant, what the hell, Lisa. No. That's not—Jesus, can I talk? Can I _talk_? Okay. Thank you."

Ponyboy watches her with interest. She makes a face at him, and he grins back.

"So I was on my way to the grocery store…no, I didn't hit anyone. _Yes_, I'm—don't interrupt me. Okay. Well. Someone took a red light while we were passing through the intersection on Main—yes, I'm fine. I'm okay…I was with Ponyboy. Yeah, he's good…I hit my head but I'm—no, I don't have a concussion. I'm sure. Yes, I know. I'll go the hospital then. No, I'm—Lisa, seriously, shut up."

She rolls her eyes at Ponyboy. Mouths, _Can you believe?_, as if his brothers ain't going to react the exact same way once they get home.

She says, answering something Lisa must have asked her, "Yeah, actually. Um. It's totaled. Completely gone."

On the other side of the living room, Ponyboy clearly hears Lisa shout, "What!" He grimaces.

"The guy hit the passenger door," Vic starts explaining, "and then the guy behind us didn't brake fast enough…yeah, the frame looked ruined…I had to crawl out of the driver's door…like I said, Ponyboy was there so—yeah, I said he's fine, why are you more worried about him?"

Ponyboy grins again, then stands to get rid of the bag of carrots he's had pressed to his chest the last half hour. He's pretty sure he won't bruise too bad but doesn't want to bother checking. He'd rather it surprise him, too, when Soda or Darry inevitably get a look at him tonight. He listens to Vic and Lisa go at it for a few more minutes, until he hears Vic say something about some girl or another and then say, "Hey!"

When he walks back into the living room she's off the phone and pulling the bag of peas off her head.

"She hung up on me," she says, "can you check if I'm bleeding?"

She isn't, and he sits next to her after offering her a bandaid, trying to stretch and finding himself sore.

"Does your neck hurt?" he asks her.

"Mostly my head," she says, "maybe my shoulders, but it's not too bad."

"The seatbelt got me good," Ponyboy says.

"You bruised?" she asks, looking at him like she wants to check. He doesn't think about her pulling his shirt off, mostly because the thought of lifting his arms up seems impossible.

"Probably," he says, and the two of them stay sitting together, knees touching, until Two-Bit walks in with groceries, trailed by Soda and Steve.

"Are y'all on the same exact schedule?" Vic asks.

"How's the car?" Steve asks, and she groans, covers her face.

Her voice is muffled. "It's totaled. I'm pissed."

Steve looks stupidly grave at this, and Ponyboy barely resists telling him so. Soda, at least, comes over to fuss at him, says, "You alright, honey?" and Ponyboy waves him off.

"Just sore," he says, "I was wearing my seatbelt."

"We get it," Vic says, "I should have been wearing one. My car's still fucked."

"What a waste," Steve says, shaking his head, "you call your sister yet?"

"Why, you wanna break the news to her?" Vic says. "Yeah, I called her already, she's pissed." She kicks at Ponyboy's ankle, gentle. "Was more worried that Pony was driving than me busting my head open."

"You what?" Soda says, immediately fired up again. Ponyboy's never understood why he's as protective over Vic as he is, considering the faux-flirting thing they like to keep up, but he's never had the chance to ask about it. Maybe it's because he and Steve got especially close to Lisa after what happened the winter after Dallas and Johnny died. Maybe it's just Soda being Soda.

"She's fine, Curtis," Two-Bit says, coming back into the living room with a bottle of beer. He's mostly clean-cut for work, but his sideburns are still there in all their ill-earned glory. If it weren't for the nearly four years that separated then and now, Ponyboy'd say he's the same Two-Bit that had been friendly as anything at the drive-in. "Ponykid here had her nice and cozy when I picked them up."

Steve squints at them.

"What are you saying," Vic says with no inflection. She drags a hand over her face, flinches when she touches the scrape.

"Taking care of Bernal for Curly, huh?" Steve says to Ponyboy, and he frowns.

"Let's not," Vic says, sitting up from where she was slouched against him. "Y'all are so fucking weird about other people's relationships. Curly ain't my boyfriend, I'm not his girl, don't nobody here gotta worry about who I'm dating now that he's gone." She gives Steve a dirty look. "Especially considering how long you and my sister were running around behind Evie _and_ Tommy's backs. Y'all don't get to forget just 'cause they're out of the picture."

"Shoot, kid," Two-Bit says, taking a swig of his drink, "Tommy's dead."

"And I totaled the last piece of him that Lisa had left," Vic says flatly, and covers her face again. "Oh, fuck, that's so much worse. Please tell me you bought the groceries I asked for."

"In the fridge, babe," Two-Bit tells her, "still in the bag."

"Thank you," she says, and stands up. Braces herself on Ponyboy's shoulder. "I'm gonna walk home then, I guess."

"No," Soda says, "I'll drive you. Ponyboy, you ice your ribs?"

"How d'you know—"

"Seatbelts, kid," says Steve.

"It was more my chest," Ponyboy says, like it's any kind of defense at all, and then grabs at Vic's hand as she moves to get her groceries. "Hey, call me tomorrow, okay? Try not to sleep for too long today."

"I don't have a concussion," she repeats, but squeezes his hand anyway.

It's only after they've walked out that Steve looks at him again, says, "You two an item now?"

Ponyboy scowls. Wishes it wasn't the first time someone had asked him that. "No. And you don't gotta keep asking."

"She was your buddy's girl," Steve says, and Ponyboy bites his tongue, remembering all the times Vic said they weren't steady. All the times Curly said he wasn't serious about her. Remembers they had six months at most before he left.

"It's not like that," Ponyboy says.

"Alright," Steve says, "but I'm just warning you. Girls like that are hard to get out from under your skin." He shrugs. "Take it from me."

* * *

Sometime in June, Lisa drives down from Chicago, surprising everyone but no one less than her sister. Vic's over, and she and Ponyboy are smoking on the front porch, talking about the classes Ponyboy's taking in the fall and how Vic ain't planning for college.

"Shoot, I wanna be done with high school already," she tells him. "If it was up to me I'd've dropped out in April and shacked up with Lisa."

"You think she'd let you do that?" Ponyboy says, exhaling. He's been trying to make rings for what feels like ages, and they keep getting wobbly on him.

"Maybe," she says. "I mean, she'd let me if I went and got my GED right away, I bet. Would that be faster?"

"Huh," Ponyboy says. He's pretty sure Soda said he was going to do that, eventually, but he isn't actually sure what it would entail. "Dunno. What would you do without it?"

"Good question," she says. "Hell, I'm gonna end up at a secretarial school anyway, I might as well get a head start on it."

Ponyboy taps the ash off his smoke, looks at her. "You'd like college."

"No, I wouldn't," she says, rolling her eyes at him, then offers a smile as apology.

"Yeah, you probably wouldn't," he admits, and laughs when she swats at him. "Hey, you ain't a bad singer, you ever thought of that?"

"Oh, please," she says, leaning into him and carefully exhaling a long stream of smoke. "Half those girls end up knocked up or doped up. Lisa'd kill me."

"Some of them make it," Ponyboy says, thinking of the theme still packed up in the basement somewhere, the one that Mr. Syme thought had real potential. "Maybe it'll bring you in a month's rent," he says.

"How long you think it'll take to _make_ it, Curtis?" she says, nudging him with her hip, and he grins.

"Two months. Three, tops."

"You're an ass," she laughs, and then straightens when she catches sight of a Camaro coming up the street, steel blue with two thick, white stripes on the hood. "Oh, hell, is that Lisa? It's Lisa, ain't it?"

The oldest Bernal sister steps out of her car like she's on a movie set. She's got bangs, now, blunt, and it simultaneously makes her look older and younger than twenty. She looks up at the two of them, lips pursed, and though he can't see them, Ponyboy's sure she's got her eyebrows up real high.

"What're you two hoodlums doin'?" she says, Texas twang strong as ever.

"What's it look like," Vic drawls, and then grins beatifically. Lisa smiles right back, and Pony's struck by the resemblance again. Took everyone forever to admit that the Bernal girls look a lot alike, so long as one's looking at the right parts. They got the same big dark eyes, same expressive mouth, hell, even the same build—just that Vic's a lot taller, having shot up three or four inches in all the years they've been in Tulsa.

Soda's the one who saw it right away, back in the spring of '67 while they were dealing with that other round of Eastside territory bullshit. "Ain't it obvious?" he said one night, hands stained with food coloring, arms spread like he was at the pulpit. "They're half-sisters. Same daddy, I'd bet," and he ended up being right. It's not like either of them talk about their mamas, though, and Ponyboy ain't one to pry. Lord knows he's not about to talk about his parents with just anyone, and he ain't about to make anyone else do it, either.

"You busy?" Lisa asks Vic, and she shrugs.

"Just bummin' it," she says, sounding more like she did when she first moved to Tulsa, like a switch went off in her. Lisa brings it out—the Texan, she says, never really goes away.

"Let's get lunch," Lisa says. She nods at Ponyboy. "You wanna join?"

"I'm alright," Ponyboy says, knowing the two of them would probably prefer to be alone, even if they like him. "Gonna clean the house."

Lisa laughs. "Back from school and back to work, huh?"

"You bet," he says, smiling at her. Vic shakes her head.

"Oh, you just want me alone to yell at me," Vic accuses, still standing pressed up against Ponyboy. Lisa rolls her eyes at them both. "I bet you're only here 'cause of the car."

"That was last month," Lisa says, "c'mere, I wanna see if you really busted your head like you said you did," and takes a step up the porch steps.

Vic grinds out her cigarette, flings her arms around Ponyboy. "Don't let her take me!" she cries mockingly, and then, in an exaggerated whisper, "I think she's gonna _take me out_."

"'S been nice knowing you," he offers, and rubs a hand up her back like the day of the crash. She scoffs, shoves away from him, gentle. Lisa grabs her wrist.

"Y'all can flirt later," she says, dry. "I'm hungry. Let's go."

"Shoot, ain't I the one who's always hungry?" Vic says, and waves at Ponyboy as her sister drags her off, "Later, Curtis!" and he waves back as they pull away.

He updates Soda and Darry when they get back from work, and Soda brightens up some. He and Lisa got along best, probably because for all Lisa was busy trying to wrangle Vicky, she spent a lot of time with him and Steve when she still lived in town.

"She sticking around awhile?" he asks, and Ponyboy shrugs.

"Didn't get to ask," he says, "she wanted to take Vicky for a bite."

He nods, starts into some story about a handsy customer that don't get far before the front door slams, and Ponyboy watches in amusement as Darry takes a deep breath, nostrils flaring.

"Sodapop!" says Vic from the kitchen doorway, light framing her a little too well, "What are you doin' Thursday night?"

He blinks at her. "Uh—"

"Wrong," Vic says, "you're takin' me dancin'. I'll be ready at eight."

"Okay," Soda says, a slow grin spreading over his face. "Over at Jeanie's?"

"You know it," she says, and then, "okay, gotta go, Lisa's got the car runnin'."

"Why didn't she come in?" Ponyboy asks.

She fixes him with a look. "Y'all are having dinner."

"And yet you're here," Darry says, slowly, giving her the same stare down he used to give Ponyboy when he'd make a similar senseless comment. Unlike him, she brushes it off easily.

"I wanna get my Friday set," she says, "since Steve'll come sniffin' 'round soon enough for Lisa."

"She's right," Soda says, and takes another bite of meatloaf. "He'll prob'ly know by morning that his favorite girl's back."

"Lisa's still not his girl," Vic sing-songs, and then says, "I do need to go now," and they say their goodbyes again.

Once she's gone, Darry says, "That girl's wilder than the two of you put together."

"Aw, c'mon, Darry," Soda says around a smile, "she keeps outta trouble best she can."

"You take her dancing?" Ponyboy says, and doesn't quite manage to keep the frown off his face. Soda glances at him.

"Yeah," he says, "a coupla times we've gone out. She don't talk to a lotta folks who dance, y'know?"

"Sure," Pony says. Sodapop nudges his foot with his own.

"You shoulda let me teach you 'fore you left for school," he tells him, "she'da been dragging you to every dance in town this summer."

"I'm not much for dancing," Ponyboy says, and lets the rest of the matter lie between them.

* * *

It's Friday afternoon that shit hits the fan. Ponyboy can't blame it on anyone—maybe just Uncle Sam, or the President, or whoever pulled the trigger, if it was even a bullet that killed Curly Shepard.

Soda ain't home, out doing something or another with whatever girl he's seeing this month. Darry is, though, and he's the one who answers the phone.

Ponyboy barely hears it ring, sitting out back with a copy of _The Bluest Eye_, apparently the first book by the author Morrison, who he's never heard of. He's only just started it, but feels, vaguely, that it's something one of the Bernal girls might like. It's mid-June, and there's a good breeze today. He takes a moment to watch the clouds pass him by, half-hearing Darry's voice, drowned out by the brief distance between them and the other, louder sounds of the neighborhood.

He's barely cracking the book open again when Darry comes out to the porch. He sees something on his face he doesn't like, and straightens up from where he's lounging on the porch-steps, uncomfortable but unwilling to move inside. Darry takes a seat next to him, still serious, and something cold and heavy settles in Ponyboy's stomach.

"What is it?" he says, and can feel a tremble starting somewhere in his throat.

Darry takes a deep sigh, one that seems to take a lot of out of him. He rubs a hand along his chin, stubbled, and says, "That was Tim."

He processes this. Will later realize that he didn't think to wonder if had anything to do with his best friend. "What for?"

"They just got notice," Darry says, "that they, uh. That they killed Curly."

It's all rather anti-climactic, if he's being honest. Ice settles in his veins; feels a little like his stomach's dropped out, like there's a cavity in his chest that once held his beating heart, or maybe the lungs he takes for granted. For a long moment Ponyboy just stares at him, trying to comprehend what's just been said. The words make sense apart—they, a pronoun; killed, past participle, a verb; Curly, his best friend. He feels nauseous, suddenly.

"What," he manages, and his voice cracks on the single syllable. He reaches out to Darry like he might be able to help, and Darry wraps his arms around him, body a firm reminder that he's here, he's alive, he's still breathing—he wonders, did Curly have someone to hold him when he died?

He doesn't say anything else for a long while, lets Darry hold him while he shakes. When he touches his face he's surprised to find it dry. He thinks of Curly's last letter, the one he wrote about Rung Sat, what it looked like after all that Agent Orange was sprayed. He'd asked if Ponyboy'd seen his sister, lately, and he'd written back to tell him that he'd bought her a milkshake when he ran into her at the Dingo, free of her husband for the night. He didn't tell him about how she looked worse for wear, or about the car crash, or seeing the smear of Vic's blood on the window. Told him to stay safe and that they were waiting for him. He hates to think of Curly dying before reading that letter.

Part of him feels guilty, sick with it, even. That could have been Soda. Affable Soda, with the sweetheart's smile that has girls all over town falling for him. His bad heart—a fluke, unnoticed until the last second, when he'd reported for his physical back in December after his notice arrived—that's what saved him. Doctors said it probably wouldn't do anything to him in the long-term, 'cept for how it kept him in Tulsa and not shipped to Khe Sanh or Hamburger Hill or any of the other countless places that American boys were being killed.

Vic would probably say there were plenty of others dying in Vietnam, even if she liked to pretend she didn't care, and—

"Did anyone call Vicky?" Ponyboy says, seconds or minutes or hours after Darry tells him that Curly's dead. Darry releases him, but he keeps one hand curled over his shoulders, like if he doesn't he might go running. And he might, he thinks. He just doesn't know where.

"Tim didn't say," Darry says. "D'you want me to drive you?"

"I can drive," Ponyboy says, like he can't feel himself still shaking. Darry looks doubtful, blue-green eyes full of sorrow like he's only ever seen in the aftermath of their parents dying. "I'll walk," he says. "I gotta. It's my turn to make dinner, but I'll—"

"Let me drive you, Pone," Darry says, stroking his hair, but Ponyboy shakes his head.

He hates how weak he sounds. "Please."

Darry hesitates. Says, "Take a blade," like he's walking a mile and not two blocks East.

"Okay," Ponyboy says, and somehow gets his legs to work.

It's not a long walk, or even an unfamiliar one. Sure, it wasn't really until his senior year of high school that he was walking Vic home regularly, when she was a freshman and Curly started showing an interest in her. That would have been when she was seeing Jennings, he thinks, which maybe explains why it took her and Curly until after the holidays to finally find their groove.

They both liked it when he third-wheeled, something that made him deeply uncomfortable but that he found too amusing to pass up every time. Vic made Curly seem a little less dangerous, most days. The summer Curly got his notice, they spent almost all their downtime smoking dope in the Pontiac. Lisa had just given to Vic as a late fifteenth birthday present, as if she were old enough to be driving. She knew how to, sure, but everyone started young on the East side. They talked about driving up to Wichita in the fall to see Janis Joplin perform, since the Beach Boys' performance back in April hadn't turned out too hot, and if the two of them weren't arguing and looking to Pony to defend one over the other, the three of them would drive around town playing their music too loud, Curly and Ponyboy both trying to convince Vic to flirt for free drinks or food or cigarettes.

Their plans for Janis were derailed when the letter came for Curly, and he spent a week raging around Tim's territory, starting fights and getting into shouting matches with his old lady's husband, who he'd been ignoring for nearly five years by that time. Tim, aware that Angela was in a different sort of trouble with her husband—but a calmer one, longer-lasting—focused all his energies on trying to get Curly out of the country. That led to the two of them shouting at each other on the front porch, and Curly saying no, he wasn't going to run like a pansy-ass coward.

Then came the night he and Vic got into it, nastier than they ever had, him accusing her of wanting him dead and her calling him a dirty Spic—just like her, she said. It hadn't mattered. The three of them said goodbye on the Shepard's front lawn, Vic and Angela had fought, and then Ponyboy had driven her home again and left her alone until she came back to his house like it could've been her home, too.

He thinks of all the cigarettes they'd bum off each other, rubs his thumb against the burn scar that's never faded from his finger. Remembers Curly teaching him how to hotwire a car, congratulating him when he started going out with Cathy and offering to buy him a drink when they broke up a few months later. Thinks of all the letters he has tucked inside the boxes he brought home for the summer, all the letters Curly won't send him again.

When he gets to the Bernal's, he finds he's got tears running down his face. Rubs at them on autopilot, tries to figure out what he's going to say. He knocks on their front door. It might be the first time he ever has—can't remember the last time he came over without one of the girls with him, talking shit or trying to cook him a meal. That was Vic and Lisa in one sentence, he thinks, and blinks when the door opens and the younger sister is standing there.

"Hey!" she says, clearly surprised. She's barefoot, wearing one of them peasant blouses the burnouts at the hippie house used to wear. She grins, real genuine, and Ponyboy sees, not for the first time, just how young sixteen really is. "What are you doing here?"

"Lisa home?" he says, wondering if he'll need to break the news all at once.

"Nah," she says, stepping back and motioning him in, "Steve took her out, probably won't be back 'til late if she comes back at all. You hungry? I made grits."

"I gotta tell you something," he says, and she blinks at him from the stove. He feels like his every move is beyond him, like he's watching himself walk into the kitchen and take ahold of her by her elbows.

"Ponyboy?" she says, eyebrows furrowed, eyes huge and dark and all-encompassing. Eyes like that see everything, he thinks. They must know it, too.

"They just called Tim," he says, voice sounding faraway to his own ears. "They got Curly, Vic," and watches her eyes widen, full mouth parting on an inhale. He tightens his grip on her elbows, takes a step when her knees buckle. Nods his head as she asks, over and over and over, if he's sure, if he's sure, is he sure that's what they said?

"Yeah, Vic," he says, and holds her tight until she won't let him.


End file.
